World Health Organization’s Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Region calls on Parliamentary Secretary

Islamabad, December 19, 2018 (PPI-OT): Dr. Ahmad Salim Saif Al Mandhari, World Health Organization’s Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Region called on Parliamentary Secretary Ms. Kanwal Shauzab in her office today. The meeting was also attended by Chief Health, Planning Commission, Dr. Muhammad Asif, Dr. Nima Saeed Abid, Head of World Health Organization, Pakistan and Dr Zafar Mirza, Director, Health System Development of World Health Organization.

Talking to the visiting dignitaries, Ms. Kanwal Shauzab said that increasing the spending on social sector is priority of the Government and in this relevance, budget allocation for health will be enhanced towards the attainment of Universal Health Care (UHC) and Sustainable Development health related Goals. Ms. Kanwal Shauzab highlighted that improved mental well-being of the future generation would also result in a more productive nation.

While discussing the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) system of the government of Pakistan, she said that Pakistan faces the problem of accurate data availability and unavailability of accurate data also affects allocating sufficient funds. CRVS plays a significant role in the availability of the accurate data.

The CRVS System, initiated by the Government of Pakistan aims at collecting information by civil registration system on the frequency of occurrence of specified and defined vital events (eg births, deaths, cause of deaths, marriage, migration, its compiling, processing, analysing, evaluating, presenting and disseminating these data in some statistical form. The significance of improvement of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) has recently been emphasized round the globe.

CRVS data is critical to support the functioning of National Health System and for a number of other government functions. Ms. Kanwal Shauzab underscored that health and education are the top priority of the incumbent government and it is focusing to localize the SDGs agenda. We are also focusing to sort out the root causes of the major diseases which would further help in elimination of the disease altogether.

Ms. Kanwal Shauzab also highlighted that our hospitals do not have sufficient paramedical staff. Government is focusing to organize more capacity building programs to train more staff which would also create number of jobs especially for the rural population. She expressed the resolve that Pakistan will be made a polio free country. Dr. Ahmad Salim Saif Al Mandhari and the other representatives of the World Health Organization assured their full cooperation in supporting the government’s agenda of making health a top priority.

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